


Mr. Young Goes (Back) To Washington

by SailorSol



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Mentions of the rest of the staff, Post-Canon, The Hawk and Dove, The New Ed and Larry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2103222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last week of January, Charlie sleeps more than he’s slept since the night his mother didn’t come home. And then February begins, and Charlie has nearly seven months before law school begins. Meeting an old friend at the bar, he finds a job offer too good to pass up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr. Young Goes (Back) To Washington

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this probably a year ago and never really did anything with it. Charlie's one of my favorite characters from the show, and I have this whole head canon where he goes off to law school and people don't realize he's that guy who dated the president's daughter and he's trying to figure out how to act around people seven or eight years younger than him who aren't used to helping run the free world on a daily basis and professors who don't always appreciate how he knows more about constitutional law and recent legislation than they do.
> 
> Which is to say, I have a couple of other unfinished stories about Charlie in law school that I'm considering finishing and polishing and posting. But until then, have this one.
> 
> Title riffed from the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".

The last week of January, Charlie sleeps more than he’s slept since the night his mother didn’t come home. He wouldn’t trade the last seven years for anything, let alone any sort of regular sleep schedule during that time. But it’s a nice change of pace, a nice vacation from the reality that had become his life sometime around the point Debbie Fiderer led him to the Roosevelt Room to meet with Josh Lyman, ignoring the fact that he’d applied for a job as a White House messenger.

And then February begins, and Charlie has nearly seven months before law school begins. He may have been able to start classes in the current semester, except it started two weeks before he was officially out of a job, and CJ probably would have killed him if he’d left her hanging that close to the finish line. Having seven months to himself had sounded like a great idea back in November, but the reality was quite different from what he’d imagined. He could probably make it through most of February catching up on all the movies and TV shows he’d missed in seven years.

But Charlie had to admit the idea of sitting around doing nothing lost its appeal around the time he didn’t manage to see Zoey at Valentine’s Day (she was still in New Hampshire with her parents, and anyway, whatever was going on between the two of them was still undefined, so he’d sent her some flowers and chocolate and they’d spoken on the phone for a little while before her father had picked up the line and started lecturing Charlie on the history of Valentine’s Day and Charlie made up an excuse about meeting Deanna for dinner). He hadn’t actually seen his sister for more than three hours since he found himself unemployed, since she was busy with her own job and her fiancé (Charlie still didn’t know how he felt about that, his little sister being a college graduate and fully employed and starting a family, when it felt to him like she was still a junior in high school asking him for help on history homework).

So during the third week of February, Charlie started looking for short term work. He knew he wouldn’t have time for a job once law school started, but if he had to sit at home all day until September, he was going to go crazy and probably get himself kicked out of law school before he’d barely even started. But most short term work was retail, and while Charlie could tell you the names of all of the senators and most of the representatives in the House, and three-quarters of both of their aides, he didn’t think he knew enough to work in retail. He didn’t think he wanted to know, either. He was turning twenty-nine this year, so he was going to be older than most of his classmates, and while he would have a hell of a lot more experience than them to make up for that fact, he wasn’t about to go down to Filene’s and apply for a job selling suits to people he used to help CJ and Josh bully around on the Hill.

It was the last week of February when Charlie ran into Sam at the Hawk and Dove. They hadn’t really seen each other since Sam had come back to the East Coast—mostly because Sam was busy doing Josh’s old job, and Charlie knew how crazy that was even on a slow news day.

“Hey, man,” Charlie greeted, giving Sam a quick hug and a slap on the back as Sam got up to greet him.

“Charlie, good to see you. I’ve been meaning to call,” Sam said.

“Don’t worry about it. You’re busy helping to run the government,” Charlie said. “Buy you a drink?”

Sam paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Only if you consider an offer from me.”

Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you engaged?”

Sam rolled his eyes in return. “Ha, ha, very funny. But seriously, Charlie, hear me out?”

Charlie sat across from Sam. “Sure,” he said, trying to keep the wariness out of his voice.

“You start law school in September, right?” Sam asked. “At Georgetown?”

“Yeah.”

“And are you doing anything right now? I mean, not right now, right now we’re having drinks, but I mean in the meantime? Before you start school?” Sam asked.

Charlie grinned; for having written some of President Bartlet’s most famous speeches, Sam was sometimes bad with words, stumbling all over himself in a rush to get all of his ideas out at once. “Taking some time off, catching up on the real world a bit. You know, the usual,” Charlie replied.

Sam bobbed his head. “Spending time with your sister? How’s she doing, by the way? She has to be almost done with school, right?”

Charlie snorted. “Sam, Deanna graduated two years ago. She’s engaged to a guy she met at work.”

Sam rocked back in his chair. “You’re kidding. I thought she still had a few more years to go.”

“Tell me about it,” Charlie said dryly. “But I doubt you were interested in my sister, and if you were, you know I’d kick your ass for it. You’re a great guy, Sam, but you’re engaged, and also, you’re a little too crazy for a guy I’d want dating my little sister.”

Sam held up his hands defensively. “I have never thought of your sister in that way before, I swear on all things holy. I just thought, you know, we haven’t really talked in a while. People do that, don’t they? Small talk? I feel like they do.”

Sam had come back from California a lot calmer than he’d left, but it seemed like being back in DC had brought back all his slightly manic tendencies. Charlie knew it was a side effect of working for the president, but not a one of them would trade that for the world, and they both knew it. “We can move past the small talk now, Sam.”

Sam looked too relieved by that, taking a long pull of his beer. “See, the thing is, Larry—well, his name’s not actually Larry, it’s Otto, but he’s basically Larry—he’s kinda clueless about how things work in Washington. Good kid, good instincts, wanted to be writing speeches but he still needs a bit of polish on the policy end of things, and I’m too busy to be babysitting him on this. And Lou is still new to this game, so Amy and I are trying to get her up to speed, but what he really needs is someone who can really walk him through some of this, get him caught up on the Who’s Who on the Hill, that sort of thing.”

“Are you asking me to be the Ed to this kid’s Larry?” Charlie asked.

“Yes!” Sam said, a little too loudly, but people turned away again after a minute. “Yes, that’s exactly it, Charlie. I want you to be Ed to his Larry. Not permanently, of course, but you’re smart, you know your way around. Josh and I trust you to teach this kid the ropes. Just until you started school, it shouldn’t take longer than that to at least get him situated, and if Josh starts yelling at someone, it’ll probably be you and we both know you can take it.”

Charlie snorted. “Yeah, I’ve been yelled at Josh a time or two before. I know when he’s just being full of himself.”

“Exactly. So, will you? Come back, I mean. You won’t get your own office or anything, and you won’t be doing as much as CJ had you doing—”

“Yes,” Charlie said, cutting Sam off. He didn’t have to give it much thought, not really. He missed working at the White House, and it would be good for him to have something to do, something he knew he liked to do. And he’d feel bad leaving Sam and Josh hanging like that. They’d been friends for several years now and all.

“Yes?” Sam asked warily, looking like he hadn’t quite heard Charlie correctly.

“Yes,” Charlie repeated. “I will come be Ed to his Larry. On one condition.”

“Okay,” Sam said carefully. “What’s the condition?”

“Make it two conditions,” Charlie said. “One, don’t you dare call me Ed or Larry. And two, you can get his name wrong all you want, but if you call me by the wrong name, I’m walking out.”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, then started laughing. “Yeah, I think I can handle that. Man, you have no idea how much of a relief it is knowing you’ll be coming back. When can you start?”

Charlie grinned. “How’s tomorrow sound?”

 


End file.
